Frequently asked questions

We price Light Blue: Photo in pounds sterling (£295 including VAT for the full version, £85 including VAT for an upgrade from v1.x and £295 + £185 per seat for the multi-seat version). The conversion's made at the time of purchase by PayPal. The rates used are the 'Interbank' rates - you can find approximations of them on the HIFX Marketwatch website.

You can install the single-user version of Light Blue: Photo on one desktop machine and one laptop machine. They can't both be used at the same time (so, for example, you can't have someone else working on Light Blue: Photo on your laptop while you're working in it on your desktop). This is because of the terms in the licensing agreement from FileMaker, who make the software we used to develop Light Blue: Photo.

You can install the multi-seat version of Light Blue: Photo on several different machines, one of which is the host machine. In this case, you'll need a separate seat licence for each machine. A maximum of five simultaneous connections may be made to the data file at any one time. (The host machine counts as one.)

Yes - just get in touch with us and ask.

Sadly, we can't extend the trial for you. However, if you uninstall your current trial, download a new installer and reinstall Light Blue: Photo, you'll get another 30 days. You won't be able to import any data from your old trial into your new trial (otherwise people would keep taking trial after trial, and we'd not make any money!) but everything else will be the same.

No - that would be boring. When you register, you simply unlock the 30-day time restriction on the trial version.

No. We've made lots of changes 'under the hood' to the data file, and you can't import from v2 to an earlier version. (Of course, importing from v1 to v2 is fine.)

The multi-seat version of Light Blue: Photo is exactly the same as the single-user version, except that the data is shared over multiple computers. The terms of our licence don't allow us to distribute trial versions of the multi-seat version, but the functionality is exactly the same as the single-user version.

The multi-seat version of Light Blue: Photo includes a full version of FileMaker Pro 10. The only restriction from FileMaker is that this copy does not qualify for upgrade pricing to other FileMaker products.

You can't import directly from address book software, but if you can export the details into a format that Light Blue: Photo can read (e.g. CSV or tab-separated text), you can import the result. If you're on a Mac, Address Book can't export natively as CSV, but there's a handy utility which will do it for you.

So:

• Export your contacts to a text file.
• Go to the 'Records' menu in Light Blue: Photo.
• Click the 'Import Contacts...' menu item.
• Choose the text file.
• Choose the field mappings. (The source file is on the left; Light Blue: Photo's fields on the right; grab the little double-arrow symbol and move the fields up and down to change the mapping.)
• Make sure 'Don't import first record (contains field names)' box is checked.
• Click 'Import'.

As always, we'd recommend you back up your data file before you do anything involving batches like this; to back up your data file go to the Settings screen and click 'Run backup'.

Yes. The machines you're transferring between need to be running the same operating system, though, so you can't transfer from a Mac to a PC or vice versa. To transfer the data file between machines:

• Take a backup of your data file on the machine you're copying from.
• Take a backup of your data file on the machine you're copying to.
• Make sure you've installed Light Blue: Photo on the machine you're copying to.
• Copy the data file (which is called 'Light Blue Photo 1-x data.lbp) from the application's folder (Applications:Light Blue Photo 1-x on a Mac; Program Files\Light Blue Software\Light Blue Photo 1-x\ on a PC) to overwrite the data file on the machine you're copying to.
• Run Light Blue: Photo.

We can't stress enough the importance of backups, especially when you're doing things with the data file.

Yes. You'll need the multi-seat version. A maximum of five simultaneous connections may be made to the data file at any one time. (The host machine counts as one.)

The best answer is 'Yes, but...'. There are various companies who will host your data file for you (for a fee!), but the performance you'll get won't be anything near what you would expect from quality desktop software. If you're interested in sharing your data on a hosted virtual server, contact us for more information.

You need to do this via Google Calendar.

• Set up publication to Google Calendar. (See our tutorials for how to do that.)
• Publish your shoots to Google Calendar.
• Use one of Google's plugins to sync your data with Outlook.

Light Blue: Photo generates a folder for each web gallery, which contains all of the images, HTML pages and resources which the gallery needs to run. To publish it to your website, just FTP the whole folder up to where you want it to be.

No, not via Light Blue: Photo. Because we don't host the galleries (just make the HTML) the only way we'd be able to password protect galleries is using JavaScript - and if the end user turned JavaScript off in their browser, they'd not need to enter the password, so it'd be rather useless! The way people have done it in the past is to choose an unusual, unique name for the gallery, so it's not easily guessable, and then provide their clients with a direct link to that gallery.

Of course, you can always password protect the gallery on your website (eg by using .htaccess and .htpasswd, or various other password protection methods).

This is a bug within FileMaker which affects some (but not all) Windows machines. To fix it:

• Go to the Start menu and select 'Control Panel'.
• Open the 'Regional and Language Options' panel.
• Click the 'Languages' tab, then the 'Details' button (near the top)
• In the 'Installed services' box towards the bottom of this dialog, highlight the 'US' keyboard and click the 'Remove' button. Do the same for any other keyboards which aren't the 'English (United Kingdom)' one. This will leave 'United Kingdom' as the only available keyboard layout.
• Once you've done all this, restart Light Blue: Photo. You may also need to restart your machine. The keyboard mapping problem should no longer appear.

Occasionally, some antivirus software can prevent publication to Google Calendar. This is because the antivirus software doesn't like Light Blue: Photo publishing information over HTTP. To see if the error's being caused by your antivirus software, try temporarily disabling it, then republishing. If the error no longer occurs, then your antivirus software is most likely to blame.

Fix for Kaspersky: Open Kaspersky. Open the 'Web antivirus' section of 'Protection'. Click 'Settings', next to 'Current Security Level'. Tick the 'Do not scan HTTP traffic from trusted web addresses, then click 'Select...'. Add http://www.google.com/* and https://www.google.com/* then OK out of all of the dialogs.

Fix for ESET Nod32: Open Nod32. Open the 'Antivirus and antispyware' section of the admin interface. Expand 'Web access protection' then 'HTTP'. Expand the 'Web browsers' section. Click the box next to the path to Light Blue: Photo until it turns to a red cross (nb not a green tick!). OK out of all the dialogs.

Yes, by all means. The image management features can be useful, but we recognise that it's not for everyone. If you don't want to use it, then just ignore the 'Linked pictures' tab on the 'Shoot - detail' screen.